Bring your tree to life

A family tree just filled with bare statistics and dates doesn’t make for an exciting read to share with a wider audience. They may well be impressed by the fact you have traced your family all the way back to William the Conqueror but there are ways to make the facts more interesting.

People

Include photographs of the people on your tree. This may be modern photographs, scans of old photographs or maybe a painting that you can capture on camera.

The photo below was taken at the wedding of my great grandparents in 1915. My great grandfather was obviously in the military at the time as he is pictured in uniform. If you are not aware of the date a photograph was taken then the fashions in the image can help you pinpoint the date.

My great grandparents wedding in 1915

Take care when scanning old photographs as they maybe damaged by the process.

Houses and places

Family homes and the places they lived are an important part of a family history. If you don’t already have photographs lurking in the family album then take the chance to go and visit these places and record them in photographs.

The house of my 2x great grandmother

You may also be able to take a video of the locality which can show how the different parts of the place relate to each other.

All of these things can really help bring your family history to life.